The NatCen Blog

Here we’ll be talking about our research in the context of the latest news, opinion andanalysis through comments from our team of experts. We’d love to hear from you, so post comments or get in touch with us.

Franziska Marcheselli explores what existing research can tell us about young people's mental health, and looks ahead to the first comprehensive survey of children and young people's mental health since 2004.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) recently published a new batch of evaluation reports on peer tutoring, with some challenging findings: two separate peer tutoring programmes did not show a positive impact on academic attainment, even though previous studies have yielded positive effects. So how can we replicate ‘what works’ in order to maximise our chances of improving children’s learning and attainment?

Sexual abuse of children has been in the news in recent months; the coverage of a devastating report on the abuse of at least 1,400 children in Rotherham over a number of years, in the face of official ignorance and disbelief, is only the most recent example.

The Health Survey for England 2010 published its findings today with chapters covering a wide range of health issues including well-being, sexual health and respiratory conditions. In particular, a chapter about children’s overweight and obesity highlighted some interesting findings around children’s perceptions of their own weight.

Anyone with an interest in the English education system can’t have failed to notice a marked stepping up of school choice policy since the UK Coalition Government came to power in May 2010. Last week Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement included a promise of £600 million for the setting up of 100 new ‘Free Schools' in England. But are choice and diversity in education really what people want?

On Universal Children’s Day last month, the UK Children's Commissioners warned the government that cuts to children’s services could result in the number of children living in poverty increasing. This will make it even more unlikely that the government will meet its 2020 deadline for the eradication of child poverty, first set out by Tony Blair in 1999.

A few days after this summer’s riots, I blogged that various commentators were rushing to partisan judgement on the causes, and that social scientists had an important role to play in understanding and communicating the complexity of what had happened. Nick Clegg was to announce the following day that research would be commissioned to do exactly that, and NatCen felt privileged to be trusted with the subsequent commission.

This week is Sexual Health Week so it seems like an appropriate time for Andrew Phelps to discuss our latest National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, or Natsal. Natsal is the most comprehensive study of sexual behaviour in the world, and is a collaborative project involving ourselves, UCL and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The study is a key resource and regularly informs policy making on sexual and reproductive health.

As Westminster debates whether the riots were the work of a ‘feral underclass’, new evidence is published of an intervention that is effective in helping ‘troubled’ families. Family Intervention Projects as they were originally known, were set up to work with challenging and anti-social families. Clarissa White manages the ongoing evaluation of Family Intervention Projects, and here she elaborates on the findings published today by the DfE.

Emily Tanner presents evidence that shows intensive reading support can have a positive impact on children who start school labelled a 'low achiever'. Our report, Evaluation of Every Child a Reader, shows that both boys and girls can benefit from Reading Recovery, a programme of daily one-to-one support from a specially trained teacher.